A Prophet Greater than Moses – May 2019
We recently received a question from a brother in Australia about his Messianic Jewish friend who now seems to have denied Yeshua. The question concerns anti-missionaries (normally orthodox Jewish people whose have tasked themselves to deny Yeshua using all manner of techniques, some very disingenuous). Here is Yakov Prasch’s rebuttal to the video sent:
Blessings in Yeshua and thank you for your question.
These two charlatans from Australia (and their American counterpart Tovya Singer) are not new.
This clip is just one example of their fraud. They deliberately invent a verse not even found anywhere in The New Testament and then mockingly proceed to attack Christians, particularly believing Jews, for believing in the verse that does not even exist.
The rabbis in their commentaries (eg. Soncino) agree that the prophecy of Deuteronomy 18:18 is indeed about The Messiah who will be “Like Moses” ( Yeshua also gave a covenant as Moses did etc.), but this is in the Torah, not in The New Testament.
Having said that, not a single rabbinic source disagrees that The Messiah will be greater than Moses in their own literature.
This is typical of both the dishonesty and pseudo-scholarship of these two pseudo academic frauds.
They actually ‘cite and quote’ a Gospel verse that is not in the Gospels as if it were which they artificially construct not by any exegesis of what John chapter 5 or any other passage does say, but rather by an imposed interpretation of their own design which they interpolate without it even being there. This absurd stay man then becomes an artificial basis for their efforts to discredit Jewish belief in Yeshua.
These two religious connivers are obviously not only disingenuous, but they prey upon the ignorance of Jewish souls of what is actually stated in the Gospels by assuming none of them are going to check for themselves and just believe their blatant lie at face value.
I would rather suggest your friend instead reads what serious academic rabbis such as Rabbi Dr. Jacob Neusner, (emeritus Ivy League professor of Judaism at Brown University), Dr. Pinchas Lapide (Professor Bar Ilan University, Israel), or the late professor Dr. David Flusser (Hebrew University) have stated concerning the Gospel narratives as valid Second Temple period Jewish literature. If your friend wishes to examine rabbinic opinion concerning The New Testament he ought to consult the work of serious rabbinic scholars and not a ridiculous pair of demonstrable bait and switch artists who would be laughed out of any serious ac anemic forum or theological symposium.
Talmudic opinion itself moreover affirms the belief that the Messiah would eclipse even Moses. The only question is : “is Jesus that Promised Messiah”?
I do not have time to knock down all of their hideous assertions one by one, but I have responded to this one.
